THE BUSINESS HERALD
Media - John Drinnan

The Business Herald included with the Friday issue of the Herald is always good value. I especially enjoy John Drinnan's chatty, sometimes gossipy Media column.
For a longtime Metro magazine reader (I have read every issue) I found this para from his column today of special interest.

PLUMPING UP
ACP Media's decision to buy Citymix and incorporate it into Metro magazine makes sense.
ACP has recommitted to Metro and it looks fine in its back-to-the-future A4 format. But it does look a bit thin and the monthly glossy would benefit from being plumped up with entertainment listings.
ACP announced this week Citymix owner and publisher Christina Sayers-Wickstead had been appointed as the new editor of Next magazine and that would have been a factor in the deal. It is not clear what cash actually changed hands.
Citymix has had a tough job in a market with listings in weekly publications and faced challenges ensuring listings are up to date and not overwhelmed by events.
These problems will remain when Citymix is incorporated into Metro - and be exacerbated by the fact that Metro is now published only 10 times a year.
But I'd expect web portal MSN - part owned by ACP - will help overcome that problem by updating listings.
ACP New Zealand chief executive Paul Dykzeul made headlines a while back when he scaled back ACP's online operations but said his scepticism related to the impact of display advertising and he had no doubts about its use for classifieds or listings.
Sayers-Wickstead - by the way - is a former editor of ACP's Fashion Quarterly. As editor of Next, she will replace Brenda Ward who is to manage Nova Models.
Footnote:
Bookman Beattie was the books editor of Citymix for the first few years of its existence. In those days Citymix was owned by Christina Sayers-Wickstead and Amanda Linnell. Linnell is now editor of the popular Viva section of Wednesday's issue of the NZ Herald.